Discuss all pending topics
Total number of discussions to be determined
Point out of ‘third party alienation’
Lee Jae-myung (left), Democratic Party presidential candidate and Yoon Seok-yeol, People’s Strength presidential candidate. Yonhap News File Photo
The Democratic Party of Korea and People’s Strength have agreed to hold a bilateral TV debate between Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung and People’s Strength presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol before the Lunar New Year holiday on the 13th. The two parties decided to request the terrestrial broadcaster to host this discussion, and agreed to discuss all pending issues in national affairs. People’s Party candidate Ahn Cheol-soo requested a three-party discussion including Ahn.
Democratic Party lawmaker Park Jumin and People’s Strength lawmaker Seong Il-jong announced that they met with reporters after negotiating a three-to-three working-level negotiating group at the National Assembly on the same day and reached an agreement.
Both parties said, “We have decided to start a bilateral TV discussion before the Lunar New Year holiday.” He also said, “The (discussion) method is conducted by requesting the terrestrial broadcaster to host the joint terrestrial discussion,” he said.
On this day, an agreement was reached on one discussion. They said, “In addition to (agreement today), negotiations will continue to proceed further discussions.” Rep. Seong said, “We will discuss again when is the most necessary and appropriate time for the people around the Lunar New Year holiday.” “Since there is a lot of movement during the holiday period, it will be decided whether it will be the first day or before the start of the holiday after consultation with the broadcaster (again) We will discuss,” he said.
Rep. Park explained, “It’s overkill for the two of us (the two parties) to talk about the four-party debate while having a meeting. He nodded, saying, “It will be so,” when asked by reporters whether the agreed bilateral discussion will proceed separately even if the multilateral discussion is negotiated. Regarding the possibility of a multilateral debate, Assemblyman Seong said, “Since there are three court debates presided over by the official Election Commission, we will decide in the future considering the schedules of the candidates from both parties.”
When asked, “How many debates are held before the election,” said Kwon Hyuk-ki, head of the public affairs department of the Democratic Party’s election committee, who participated in the negotiations. He added, “We will discuss additionally with non-terrestrial broadcasters after the Lunar New Year so that we can work together.”
Earlier, Rep. Park and Rep. Seong met the day before and said, “The two parties decided to actively participate in the discussion,” and decided to form a three-to-three working-level negotiating group to conduct working-level negotiations, including the media in charge and the topic of discussion. Candidate Yoon’s side insisted on a discussion to verify the suspicion of Daejang-dong, while Lee’s side is known to have requested a policy and vision-oriented discussion.
The People’s Party called for a three-party discussion, including candidate Ahn, saying that the bilateral TV debate was unfair. Lee Tae-gyu, general election director of the People’s Party, held a press conference on the same day and argued that “the discussion of collusion between the two parties is conspiracy and clearly infringes the people’s right to know.” Kwon Eun-hee, floor leader of the People’s Party, met with reporters and said, “The broadcast debate between candidates from both parties, which excludes candidates with more than 15% approval rating, is unfair from anyone’s perspective.” did.
Candidate Lee wrote to his social networking service (SNS) on the same day, “I hope that concrete solutions to save the economy and people’s livelihood and various measures to guarantee the people’s basic economic rights will be discussed.” I hope it will be a productive place where we can quickly agree on what needs to be done right now and make a promise to the people together.” Candidate Yoon also said on SNS, “We welcome the decision of Candidate Lee who agreed to the agreement.”
In addition to the debates based on the agreement between the candidates, the presidential candidate court debates hosted by the National Election Commission will be held three times on February 21st, 25th, and March 2nd.
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